Under Qualified
by JoyceCLynn
Summary: Applying to work at Arkham: poor career choice. Faking your credentials to get the job: illegal. Taking over Dr. Comb's sessions with the Scarecrow until Arkham can find a replacement doctor: lethally stupid. (Dark/Light Themes)
1. Chapter 1

It hurts sometimes when you're wrong. Deciding to do the wrong thing at the absolutely wrong time. Applying to work as an intern at Arkham: wrong career choice. Getting accepted to work at Arkham in spite of the fact you have literally zero experience in the field of psychology with your bachelor's degree being in biology: absolutely negligent. Having a friend pretend to be a previous boss when the asylum checks your forged references: illegal. But honestly she didn't get officially stupid until after she agreed to temporarily take Dr. Comb's appointment with Crane. The serial killer's first attempt on Dr. Comb's life had left the man a babbling shell of his former self and the Asylum was unwilling to lose anymore of its able staff.

Why she agreed was simple. Her boss gave her no other options being short staffed on able psychologists and felt that it would be a "learning experience." She would have altogether preferred it be someone else's experience. Crane was better known for teaching his doctor's on the "all powerful" ways of fear, often times either murdering the doctor or permanently damaging their mental capacities. An experience with Crane was a draw between a death sentence and a permanent nervous breakdown.

But temporary was temporary. Two weeks. That was it. Just two weeks, no more, no less. She would have to suck it up and get through ten weekday hour-too-long sessions of Mr. Scaryface; she'd get her paycheck and go back to treating level one wackos. Back to her gorgeously beautiful monotony.

So instead of moping she reviewed Comb's notes. She reviewed until her eyelids drooped and her back ached from the strain of bending into the tiny scrawl. Comb's handwriting was neatly claustrophobic. She listened to half of Comb's tapes twice and went to bed. The entire load was a commitment too serious to attempt.

When she woke she put on her usual white lab coat over a red turtle neck and a black knee length business skirt. She wanted to at least give off the impression of professionalism. Or the impression of a really boring person that was not worth the mental effort of focusing on. She put her dark brown hair up in a tight bun that was leagues closer to boring when compared to her usual messy buns. To Meg's eyes she looked absolutely forgettable.

She almost considered not doing her usual makeup but decided against it. She was overly paranoid that there might be some freaky psychology Crane would read into it if she did. According to Comb nothing escaped his notice. He noticed if your coat was wrinkled because you were late, he noticed if you were tense because of a fight, and was deftly able to discern who the fight was with, and he somehow knew what to say to make you do crazy things that ten seconds prior had seemed implausible. He was a psychotic psychic button pusher.

She decided to do a plain version of her usual makeup. Eyeliner was kept thin, usual smokey eye was regulated to a muted light tope, and lips were allowed to stay her usual professional shade of light pink. She really only had one shade of lipstick and it wasn't like her appointment with Crane was important enough to buy something even more demure.

She drank two cups of coffee black, too nervous to go further into the Arkham break-room and grab cream and sugar. It was six A.M. and it would be an hour and a half until the guards haled Jonathan Crane's ass from the morning shower rooms into a session cell.

When the first hour passed by Meg decided to head with a guard escorting her into a session room a half hour early to set up her protocol recorder and sit in her pre-practiced pose. Legs were crossed and arms were relaxed, one arm on the table the other glued to her side. Her heart would not stop beating. She really hoped that whole "God of Fear" nonsense was bull crap otherwise he was going to know she was scared shitless.

She took deep breaths. They were difficult to make. She wished she could erect a giant glass wall and turn her desk into a protective fort.

When the door finally opened Crane was escorted in by three guards and successfully chained by his feet to the table. He had angled features, a pointy nose, a pointy chin, and long lanky limbs. His hair was poorly combed and a dingy russet color. He looked up to rove his beady blue flashlight eyes all over her, absorbing everything in a quick second. He was likely the living embodiment of creepy. She nearly forgot the first line of her script with the emotional goring.

"Hello patient #14223, before we begin this session is there any particular namesake you would prefer me to refer to you as? Keep in mind as a mental health facility your options are limited to the legal realm." There was no way in hell she was going to spend the next two weeks addressing him as Scarecrow. She was not going to indulge his lunacy.

His unruly eyebrows rose. "I prefer being addressed as Dr. Crane. Although, I do not see the point in stating a preference when I know full well you will just ignore it."

His voice was calm, higher pitched than she expected. It sounded how she pictured bugs burrowing into your skull felt. When you finally noticed the extent of the damage you were dead.

She paused staring at him trying not to make eye contact for too long, his eyes made her feel like an alien was dissecting her. She tried to think of a reason why she wouldn't call him doctor. She didn't watch much news and knew only what was in the chart on the rogue. She could only come up with one reason. "You did earn your doctorate at a real college, didn't you? This isn't another alias you go by, correct?" She nearly pulled open the chart to reread his legal name and titles. But to do so would undermine her credibility.

His mouth opened and then shut. His evil blue eyes never left her brown eyes. He was trying to calculate whether or not to weigh her statement as sarcastic or honest. But his irritation rose above his hesitation. "Of course I earned my doctorate, child. Why on earth would I choose such an obvious alias." He was no Joe Kerr. He was far more inventive.

She tried to not hyperventilate when his voice rose. "Dr. Crane it is." If she spoke small sentences the panic wouldn't show.

Apparently the quick, short verbal spit-out did the trick because "Dr. Crane" straightened his shoulders and seemed to lose steam. Then he pushed his glasses up his pointy nose and focused on her in much different way from his previous alien dissection. It was a look that screamed I see the move your trying to make on your little chess board and it is not going to work.

She wanted to scream that she was not playing on a chess board just a calendar.

"You are aware that conceding to call me Dr. Crane over Mr. Crane will win you no extra points with me." He was mildly surprised that she was the first doctor to ever attempt flattery with him. Most doctors treating him went straight into the category of annoyance or under stated antagonization. He wondered if this new tact made her any more clever than the rest.

It was her turn to blink. She was almost flattered that he thought she was capable of that level of foresight. She really did not get why psychologists got so wound tight over doctorates. It was a piece of paper that would one day disintegrate. It meant nothing.

"To be clear Dr. Crane, for the next two weeks I am filling in for Dr. Comb, so earning bonus points is not a priority." Bonus points with a homicidal maniac were not worth much when a person was dead. She just wanted to survive, anything else was insignificant.

Crane listened to her sentence with careful examination. He listened for fluctuations in voice, he watched for falters in body language, eyebrows lifting too high or mouth quirking too far to one side. She was nervous but not because she had been caught in a lie. She was clearly under-qualified to deal with his caliber of inmate. He almost pitied her for falling victim to the failures of Arkham's understaffing. He would have had he not been so egocentric and always eager to turn a situation in his favor.

"I am only continuing where your previous doctor left off and where he will once again resume." She crossed her arms against her chest before mentally forcing her body into a leisurely pose. Crane did not need to know he had her on the defensive. He was the only person in the world who fed off fear like a vampire. She wondered if sunlight and happy thoughts made him combust.

"Ah, so you will be my babysitter until then I suppose?" Down grading another's position was the quickest route to use in order to garner quick emotional responses. It was the best method of evaluation. He knew she was already uncomfortable due to his momentary spike in temper, shifting her off the script would not be too difficult. Crane knew well how to work a person's cogs into the tick-tock of emotional impulse.

She could tell he was trying to crawl under her skin with his snarky quip. She was not going to bother arguing with him, not when he was in all technicality correct in terminology. "Exactly."

He didn't know how best to respond to such idiotic candor. He was willing to allow her to continue speaking since it would allow him to decipher the best means of her destruction.

She couldn't explain the surge of joy she felt when she realized, after a few breaths, that Dr. Crane was going to shut up. She hoped he stayed silent for the remainder of their sessions. "Now I, unlike your previous doctors, believe in keeping these sessions free flowing. So we can talk about whatever you'd like or we can not talk at all."

She offered the latter in hopes he felt taciturn during their sessions and would prefer silence. Her plan for dealing with this dangerous serial killer were simple. She was not going to make an impression, and she was not going to piss him off.

"I see you subscribe to client centered therapy. Are you hoping that by pretending to empathize with me I will suddenly change my socially unacceptable ways." He went for the next trick in the book: sexism. Compare her tactics to a poorly written trashy bedroom novel, and wait for the rise in feminine outrage.

She had no clue what client centered therapy was. She was extremely poor equipped to deal with this skinny villain. She answered his scorn honestly. "No. I have no intention to empathize with you. I am merely choosing this form of therapy for its greater flexibility."

He seemed unsold. His body sat relaxed, stance wide, and arms resting lazily along his thighs. She swallowed warily, noticing for the first time how long those limbs were and becoming shocked at the realization there was more to them than flesh than bone. Dr. Crane may not have had bulk but his thin limbs were more than skin and bones; there was wiry, deadly, camouflaged muscle that could easily reach across the desk and strangle her.

"No one gets uncomfortable and we all go at a comfortably therapeutic pace." Lord she hoped he bought that bull shit.

It seemed he did because he withdrew once again to his quiet recluse, no longer engaged. Crane was beautiful when he shut up, and stopped his damn poking. It was like he was purposely throwing stones to see which one hit her the hardest.

Then he threw a boulder.

"You've neglected to introduce yourself. I'll begin this session only after a proper and professional introduction." His voice rose once again, falling hollowly in the air like grey mist. He was not pleased that it had taken this long in their session to find that one little hole he could push his finger through and mangle her head into pieces.

She really had been hoping she wouldn't ever be forced to link a name to a face for their limited sessions. She knew that it had been a childish hope but she was saddened just the same to see it crushed.

"Are you afraid the high level criminal might use such basic information to your harm?" He was pushing harder. He wanted to see some emotion. He did not like seeing this woman so calm, dealing with him like a harmless boy. He was the almighty Scarecrow harbinger of terror and destroyer of sanity. He was a god to be revered.

She was ninety-five percent sure that was a threat. "My name is Megaera Ryans and I prefer to go by Meg." She was hoping that by going on a first name basis she could avoid him discovering immediately that she had the bare minimum credentials to treat him and was absolutely lacking a doctorate.

"Very well Megaera. I shall refer to you by your legal first name. After all legal parameters exclude nicknames and other aliases you may choose to go by." He smiled at the way his words cornered her. If she did not want to say his criminal name he did not want to stoop to common nicknames.

Whoopdee-doo. He wasn't going to call her Meg. She could have cared less. "I see your point. Yes that will be a permissible reference."

They sat in ridged silence until spoke. "So are you planning on asking me any questions or shall we continue in silence?" He was growing bored with this new doctor's lazy style. It lacked form and talent. The only admirable qualities in the woman's favor were the unpredictable nuances her therapeutic form guaranteed.

"Dr. Crane it is as I told you: whatever you want to talk about we can talk about." She tried not to sound condescending or clipped. She tried.

"How about my previous counts of man slaughter." He did not like her tone. He came back with an equally aggressive tone.

"If you wish to yes. Although I will of course condemn those acts in a responsive lecture." She forced her face to remain unimpressed, impassive. Inside she was grimacing.

"But of course." He did not like the looks of her too calm face; he wanted to scar her features in a way that would make it impossible to form that look. Everyone had a deep secret horror that repulsed them. He would find hers.

"What about my research on fear and my experiments?" He knew that one always was a fire starter.

"Yes. But it will tailor the same response." She unwittingly doused the flames before they spread.

"What about talking about you?" He grinned purposely stretching his long torso closer to his new doctor. He let the chains bite into his ankles and wrists as he bent over the girl. He examined her tight bun, light makeup and wide brown eyes, knowing that the surprise was a result of his awkward shape and irregular height. He really had no love for women, so false, so superficial, so cruel. He stopped grinning and let his face rest back into its worn scowl. He hated women more for being female than men for being male. When women hurt they used unmeant promises of romance and care to snare their prey. Most men just used their fists.

"Me?" She could feel her heart beating in several places at once. He was incredibly tall despite being so thin.

He seated himself, satisfied by her reaction, unwilling to push further into the realm of hastily pressed panic buttons. "Yes. It seems only fair. If you are to treat me I am to treat you. I am a doctor of psychology after all. I can help lessen your anxieties and ease your fears." He would drag her into oblivion.

Her face went blank and white. She was not being treated by a man who trapezes the night wearing a potato sack over his face. But two weeks was a short span of time and as long as it was just talking they did there was no immediate danger.

"Then I will respond honestly and maintain the same liberties you have to refuse to answer certain questions. Any questions I deem unfit or unprofessional or none of your business I will choose to ignore. And for clarification you are not treating me" She was fine with mutual discussion. She was in control of how much she shared not him.

"Do you enjoy working at Arkham?" He was never unprofessional. Even in his experiments he never let those urges express themselves in an unprofessional manner. He kept his mind completely objective, excluding his more leisurely excursions for past tormentors. He didn't exclude individuals from his trials on the basis of sex, income, or race and he always tried to keep his death toll low. He unsuccessfully tried.

Contrary to popular belief his first goal was not to scare his patients to death but rather to force them to face their fears. Albeit he was quick to kill a patient that resembled the mean qualities of a bully and typically he allowed a bit more abuse for women reminiscent of sordid pretty, little sorority-princesses. His past incidents with Sherry Squires, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Granny and his mother did not make him feminine friendly to even the most innocuous faction of female.

"Yes." She was definitely going to keep her answers short. He was not getting a free ride into her head.

"Yes is an answer, but it is not one that will not make me entirely eager to continue this game with you. If you want real responses from me then I suggest you give me responses longer than a single syllable." He dropped his voice low, and he eyed her down, annoyed and bored.

"Where did you work as a doctor?" She was not going to play his weird passive aggressive game. She just needed to pretend a little longer and then she could go back to her housing area on the island and read her book, relax, and eat pop-corn.

"Gotham University and later here at Arkham." He made sure his voice was mocking. He wanted his point to register loud and clear. Crane's session was beginning to remind him of the sparse times he was forced to work with children in order to get his mental health licensing. Those times were miserably simple due to the meddling fondness he had for children and his unwillingness to experiment on the little brats. It was a pathetic memory.

"Fine. I enjoy my job purely because it pays well and because until recently I have been only authorized to work solely with lower level inmates." She was not going to admit to a level ten inmate that she only dealt with level one inmates. He would kill her.

"Much better." His eyes practically glowed with excitement. He was pleased she was complying. It made his job easier. Concession on his part would further cement a promising rapport.

"I was fired at Gotham University for firing a gun in my classroom instructing my students in the power of fear. They fired me in spite of the fact my students got nearly straight A's that semester." He tried to keep his voice bland. He could not help the leaks of anger that flowed like ice. He was a slow moving iceberg of slights, all that people saw was the tip. Awkward mad gangly doctor turned serial killer. They didn't see the layers of anger that were burrowed miles deep, the pieces that flattened ships and hollowed out land as he followed his course.

She noticed the hard edge to his words and the way his knuckles went white.

"Later on I applied for a job at Arkham. I was of course hired. My credentials in spite of that one incident were impeccable." He was amused, his smile errant, everything lighter. He quickly swallowed the fury and carried on as though everything he did and said was normal.

The way he could flip between a short burst of angry super rogue to repressed social worker was eerie. The more emotions that escaped his control the more severely he looped back into a phony "everything I do is super normal" attitude.

"I worked my way up to the top rung of the ladder at Arkham and began experimenting in earnest on my new easily forgotten patients." He looked at his nails unconcerned over the unveiled arrogance behind his statement.

He looked up surprised she was not considering seizing on any of the offered bait. There was his vanity and his vulnerability all prepared for discussion like a Thanksgiving turkey. "See how much easier things go when you share without holding back Megaera?" The query was a small prod he used to try and force Megaera's focus back to him.

"Sure do." She did not want to keep talking with crazy Crane. He was a self-centered cretin, who probably acted the way he did because he enjoyed the pain. He was not made a tragic figure because of one lousy firing, he was just another costume wearing crazy that pretended he had an excuse to live in a permanent evil Halloween-town fairytale.

"Are you afraid that given your lack of experience in treating higher level inmates you will be unable to treat me?" He was not pleased with her held back approach. He was irritated at her lack of interest. Her unresponsiveness irked him.

Ok the lack of experience cover was blown and now hung open wide for the scary doctor to see. But she certainly was not afraid that she would be unable to treat him. She was perfectly comfortable never treating him.

She was in fact terrified of Jonathan Crane deciding to gas or kill her. Sure she worked at Arkham, and yes, it was almost guaranteed that the job gave your life expectancy the shelf life of warm month old hamburger, but she had high hopes that once she saved her cash up she could move out of Gotham to live out the rest of her days on a beach.

Arkham paid a whopping yearly salary of 800,000. Unfortunately most people only lived or worked long enough to collect the first six months, which due to worker laws, restricted the salary to 100,000. Megaera Ryans had so far worked one full year at Arkham and in the next six months would make it to the holy two year anniversary date. If she made it to three years she would have enough money saved to quit and move.

"Not at all. I'm Dr. Comb's place holder. I don't have any grandiose expectations to cure you in two weeks." He was way too messed up for anyone to even hope for that. He was like a car, sure it still drove, but it also had a nasty habit of exploding, and it usually took out the driver and a city block.

"Is that because of a lack in confidence in your capabilities as a professional?" He wondered briefly if her disinterest was in fact insecurity.

"Nope."

Crane agreed. Not insecurity. His eyebrows rose and she misinterpreted.

"To be fair sometimes a short answer is the most honest." She frowned. "So when did you first start putting on the mask?"

"A few years after I was fired at Gotham University. It does not bother my conscience to say I killed the board that incorrectly voted to remove me from the staff." He wondered vaguely if being this close to a murderer bothered Megaera.

"So you killed members of your university's faculty while working at Arkham?" Where did the guy find the free time to complete his complicated revenge hobbies.

Oh yes, she indeed was not comfortable around murderers. "Yes."

It was annoying how easily Crane mirrored her responses. He was keeping track of the length if response she gave and obnoxiously mimicking her words like a six year old. Their session was almost over, five minutes were left. She was gladly calling it quits.

"Well it appears our session is nearly over. Do you have any questions or comments in regards to your treatment? I will make additional notes in your chart so your concerns can be dealt with effectively by Dr. Comb." Because she sure as hell was not dealing with any of his issues.

He let out a cold piercing, shrill laugh. "The level of treatment I gave to Danny Comb likely means he will try to make you my permanent doctor."

Megaera Ryans closed her eyes for three long seconds before a sharp drumming of fingers interrupted her worried thoughts.

He tapped the desk between them absently jotting his own scattered chart notes on his new experimental doctor. "I find your forum is clumsy and far too open but I will say it has merit in the fact it is different enough to be unexpected. In short, I look forward to our next session." He stretched both hands forward, despite his being tightly bound by chains, for a handshake. His chains clinked together like a herald of twilight, and Meg found out that Dr. crane, could in fact, extend his arms across the table to wrap his long fingers around her neck.

Megaera shook Jonathan Crane's hand for no other reason than for the fact he had thoroughly worn her mind to fatigue and she failed to think of the circumstance and consequence.

He was surprised she did not call the guards. For Jonathan Crane, Megaera's handshake felt like a challenge.


	2. Chapter 2

After her skull drilling session with Crane's punchy quirks, Meg was relieved to go back to her beautiful routine. She finished the last chapters of "A Clockwork Orange" disappointed the jerky main character did not die, ate a bowl of pop-corn, ran the treadmill in the orderly gym for a whole sweat stained power hour, and finished the workout event with a set of super sit ups.

Megaera Ryans was terribly paranoid one day she would be caught between escaping inmates and a nearby exit. Living with the one-day hope that the asylum laws would allow every Arkham worker to protect themselves was like living with the hope that the Mayans were right about the end; it was obvious if either happened their only hope was how fast they could flee. The rogues were not very easily incapacitated by non-Bat family members. The guards could stay fighting and dying with their tear gas and guns. She would run and hide like a real adult and survive.

After her nightly routine was complete she went back to her sparsely furnished quarters, sat on her bed, and reopened Crane's chart, writing a verbose jumble of random gook she had picked up over the past year's tutelage from psychology coworkers and google. Her terminology still needed work, and she mainly wrote how she interpreted the days events. She figured, with or without training, her observations were likely just as valid as any doctor's on Crane's mental health.

He wore a potato sack on his head and moonlighted as a super villain, and was afflicted with a serious case of pissed off scientist revenge impulses. She could not write exactly that, but the words summed the bulk of what her report needed to express.

Instead she wrote: Patient wishes to be referred to as Dr. Crane. The desire evidences pride in his title and an eagerness to be regarded with respect. Patient expressed anger at recollection of past termination. Likely the tipping stressor that started patient's violent criminal behavior. Possible inferiority complex.

She decided against writing about the prods made on her personal account. She would only be lectured for her informal technique and forced to mimic a proper routine. Then Dr. Jonathan Crane would swallow her alive, all while cutting her into itty-bitty parts with his damnable blue dissection eyes.

The final thing she did to end her day, before falling into a comatose slumber for the next seven hours, was google client centered therapy, and read the full wikipedia article. She was glad that her form was only similar. She personally believed open dialogue prevented any credential questions arising and made a patient feel like they were actually getting real live professional help. Client centered therapy read like a hippy-dippy Woodstock. It allegedly helped inspire empathy and healed the mind using acceptance. She was not willing to go on a feel-good-fest with Crane. Arkham would be better off trying to cure him using hypnosis or other nonsensical practices.

She was happy that Crane thought the route she wanted to take in his head health involved kleenex and copious amounts of back patting. His mistake would help ease the following weeks along quickly. She turned off the bed-stand light and wrapped herself tightly in a fuzzy blanket. She thought about how Crane would likely spend his free time plotting on how to make her job as miserable as possible and she decided to fortify her free time with enjoyment.

"Dr. Crane" was probably sitting alone in his cell with a little Scarecrow diary writing about his great powers of fear and how he planned on scaring her with his weird sack face and creepy Wizard of Oz costume. Sometimes she hated her job.

"Dr. Crane" was in fact in his cell, alone, sitting across his cot, limbs splayed together at odd angles. He was listening to the screams of insanity, the murmuring of loons, and the laughing pitches which mingled together in a mad convergence; it was a recipe for insomnia. He would not be getting any sleep tonight.

He frowned in reminiscence of his previous session. The new subject was not more difficult to break, just a different genre of fear he had yet to play with. Different people had different breaking point categories. For many physical abuse ran faces white and broke the spirit, for others it was mental abuse that shrouded the thoughts in darkness, away from clarity. Fear had layers, his compounds helped to expose the center point of those layers. He showed his patients where the truth hid beneath a veneer of superficial phobia.

He was excited. Megaera's session was the first session in which the mental diagnosis had taken longer than a single meeting to uncover a chink. He hoped her psychic armor was complex, the sort that needed patient stripping, the variety of mind he could spend hours with, slowly inching closer to the originating roots of terror. He had time to kill, and imprisonment had become terribly boring. He was ready for a change in pace.

The lights of the cellblock hall were off which made reading too tedious a task, so instead, Crane sprawled backwards, silently counting. The lists of phobias spiraled through his head in varying spindles. He thought through possible tests and delightful deductions. He stared up at the cobwebs above his cot, arachnophobia; the tight spaces of his cramped cell, claustrophobia; and the all too common despair that burrowed beside the darkness, achluophobia. So many fears and there were so many limitations to the possible tests.

The morning came and with it followed Crane. Forced to breakfast, forced into the showers, and forced to his session by the trumpets of blue suited, rough handed guards. He made no sound as he followed, he expressed no malice as he was shoved along, no verbal dissent as the Arkham drones jeered and mocked. Although he did remember their names. He would never forget who they were, nor would his memory fog over what they said.

He was shackled to his seat roughly and Crane allowed his glasses to purposely fall onto the table. The guards left Crane and Megaera alone and Crane left his glasses at the center of the metal table.

Megaera stared at the glasses and then shifted her eyes pointedly back to Crane.

He showed her his cuffed hands. "I would grab them myself but chains really limit your range of reach."

"Well then it's a good thing you don't need to see me to hear me." She was not grabbing his glasses, not when the two lenses felt like a spring loaded bear trap. He could have them back when the guards came to take him away. His long limbs still seemed just long enough to reach the object on his own and she was not going to haphazardly fling her hands or body near a Gotham rogue.

"Are you afraid to do something as trivial as hand me my personal affects?" He was not angry, he was objective, objectively annoyed. He would let her decide to help, but he would also ensure her actions were judged accordingly. He would not make a refusal easy.

"Fine." Megaera's shoulders heaved, intertwined with the sentiment of the syllable. Her hand wrapped around the metal frame of Crane's glasses and she looked down for a second and resurfaced in the next. "Here."

In those seconds Megaera had made one innocuous mistake and Crane moved fast enough to seize upon her error. He pulled her hand forward and a dark shape launched itself from his palm.

The black spider landed on her face with menace and she shrieked. She threw the glasses at Crane's face as she fell backwards in her chair, flailing in uncoordinated spasms. She batted wildly at her bun, and face, eventually brushing free a spider about the size of a quarter.

Crane stared mesmerized as his new doctor came unglued, turning her orderly look into a haphazard mess. Her bun was full of loose hair and her clothes became scattered, unrefined. Her scream made his body shake with laughter and eyes water in mirth as he watched her fall backwards from the chair. He stopped laughing when she stood and her heel fell hard on the ground, crushing the harmless arachnid.

"That was a use of excessive force." He stared at the spider guts with a contemplative look. He had spent the night searching for such a large specimen and the death seemed a true loss.

"Did you throw a live spider at me?" He smiled at her bewildered look. He never understood why females were so taken by the spider's form. The species, excluding the far between venomous breed, were harmless.

"Maybe." His response was unapologetic. He slid his glasses back into place, easily maneuvering his bound hands. He had very detailed experiences with handcuffs.

"You are a jerk." Megaera was consumed with contempt and fear. He had gotten to her so easily, and it proved how unsafe she truly was. He threw a spider in her face and had done so purely to get a rise from her. She had been incredibly lucky it had been such a minute action. The spider could have been poisonous. It could have been a weapon. It could have been fear gas, which of course would have meant insanity or death.

"Is that your clinical assessment or your personal opinion?" He was surprised by the immature jeer. He returned the insult with an undermining query. Her response was not typical of a professional and practicing doctor.

"It should be both." Megaera righted her steel-framed chair, flipping it upright. She sat back down, outside of her practiced pose. She was undone legs and crossed arms, and looked entirely too defensive. She quickly handed Crane control over her session using only a boxed-in pose.

"Was that Arachnophobia? Or a fear of the unknown?" He grinned at a tilt, white teeth hanging in crooked rows. He leaned his long torso forward, hunching closer to Megaera to bring his face closer so he could breathe in her discomfort. She smelled a wonderful mix of his favorite assortment of emotions. He wondered which flavor he would get to sample first as he slowly worked her pretty little head open: fear, paranoia, anger, or shock.

"How did you manage bringing a spider into this session?" She was baffled. The state issued a standard inmate jumper and standard under garments, and guards searched the jumpers of level ten inmates every room to room transfer. His jumper was loosely fitted and too short at the ankles, but it certainly did not have pockets. The curious question was a unusual quandary being that the next thought to cross her mind was Jonathan Crane's under garments.

Did the Scarecrow hide live spiders in his underpants?

The humor of the mental image both sobered and relaxed her ridged body language. She uncrossed her arms and righted her stance.

Crane frowned feeling the shift in power; he had lost his momentary edge. He saw the slight upward curve of her lips and suddenly felt like the efforts he had made were not enough. He could do better. He felt sullen that his inventive approach was only a start. "It is a spider. Not a concealed weapon. I hardly need a permit."

He had time to make his brand sear through every plane of her mind, inescapable and absolute. The spider was a warm-up.

"Why did you bring it with you into your session?" There was a difference to doing something because you wanted to and because you were driven by spite. She would prefer that the Scarecrow did not harbor lethal thoughts for her.

"That answer is obvious: to scare you" The weight of the drawl he settled into the words was decidedly obnoxious. He was known as the Scarecrow for a very specific reason, and it was not because he delighted in the uncomfortable feel of scratchy burlap. He wondered what had become of his field. To ask answers she could already answer on her own was pointless. Today's psychology graduates were falling short of the Jonathan Crane rigor bar.

She glanced down at the white tile floors, noticing that the smashed spider guts had smeared into a line of ruddy brown. She was happy to conclude from her autopsy the spider was absolutely, undoubtably dead.

"So it was Arachnophobia?" He noticed the downward shift of her eyes and smugly announced his findings. He never was wrong when it came to a diagnosis.

"Dr. Crane I am not answering that question. You are behaving unprofessionally." She was afraid to have him inside her head, and she was terrified he would know the inside of her head better than she did. The thought of having the Scarecrow board inside her skull was one part catastrophe and two parts suicide.

Crane recognized the time he was allowed to push forward and the times it was an opportunity to give. Now was his time to ravage her defensive walls, and burn through her psyche. "I will find out eventually. I will sift through every last fear, every little insecurity you bury away to hide. I'll uncover them and bring them to the surface like a raw, open sore." His words were a lashing of spectrums, each illustrating a new side to the menace he would rain down upon Megaera if she chose an uncooperative route in his therapy. This was his session. This was the Scarecrow's session, and Jonathan Crane was in control.

"How poetic." Her words were the slap that woke a god.

"Words have power." Jonathan Crane's words were a war declaration that promised unholy recompense.

"I would prefer that you refrain from further spontaneous actions and instead, relied upon your words during our sessions to communicate." She wondered exactly how many heart attacks she could survive. She imagined if her next sessions only involved words the doctors could successfully resuscitate her.

"I would, but you seem to have a very strong inclination to not answer my questions. It gives me an equally strong inclination to resort to extremely spontaneous actions." He pulled his chained hands to his chest, shrugging his shoulders. The word spontaneous rolling from his tongue in a lewd suggestion; it was purposely obscene when paired together with his unruly, waggling eyebrows.

She needed to put a stop to his face. The look made too many dangerous promises and too few guarantees for survival. Her only choice was concession. "Fine. I am afraid of spiders."

"Why?" He smiled, lips closed and curled together.

"Because I find them scary." Her brown eyes narrowed and her voice tightened.

She was not answering the way he wanted.

"You know I can find out using other more spontaneous measures." He found he liked being "spontaneous" with this new doctor. She had such a pretty look of terror when she was in disposed distress.

"I hate spiders. I just do." She tried the deadpan technique. She tried to remove herself from the room, the situation, the explanation. She just hated spiders because they looked ominous and poisonous. It wasn't like as a child she fell into a pit of spiders. She just hated them the same way cats hated water, naturally and evasively.

"Is it because you can't predict what they are going to do. They move so quickly, you don't have the time to react. " The words emerged sharp. He was playing with the chains at his wrists, jingling the links playfully on the metal desk. The tune he wrapped against the desk was familiar.

The melody was 'Over the Rainbow' and yet it sounded more sober, more ominous than the sounds her optimistic memories held captured.

"Or maybe it's their angular shape. They aren't pretty to look at are they? A predator with an uncommon and awkward shape." Suddenly his eyes stopped locking with hers in observation and became inverted and unfocused. His voice was not sharp, high, nor thinly pitched this session, it was thick and restless. He was saying more than the etymology of words could express in his description.

"Are we still talking about spiders Dr. Crane?" She was startled by the sudden focus of emotion from Crane. There was no way the heavy reaction was only about spiders. He was talking about himself.

He did not answer her question, choosing instead to continue tapping the next verse of the familiar song.

Megaera grew nervous and uncomfortable; this was the silence of a baleful storm, churning and frothing beneath human skin. She sought out the eye.

Megaera chose to appease him by answering his earlier question in hopes of dissipating the building stagnation. "I would reason that I fear anything more out of a desire to not get bit." She wanted Crane to return from silence. The byproduct of his kind of silence foreboded death.

"How quaint. You must love your job." A woman who willingly chose to work in a maximum security asylum, and feared getting harmed from a little nip was ill suited to her career. He imagined her misery ran in spades.

"Did you love your job?" She found the dig defensive and carefully headed forward with their orbiting dialogue.

It seemed that the quick question momentarily aligned the planets because his frown disappeared, the deep lines lifting and his blue eyes cleared in two wistful circles. "I adored it."

"Why not go back to it then? Why not reform?" She could see earnest hunger for what he lost. She could see he wanted his past. He missed his freedom. The point in being a criminal was nothing if it neither accomplished nor acquired his desires.

His walls locked down as quickly as they opened, the hungry look was buried in hate, cruelty, and derision.

"It would be a waste of time and that train of thought is a waste of your breathe. I have already lost my soul to this persona. No one would ever hire me and even if they did they would never allow me the same degree of freedom I once enjoyed." His voice was a mix of high pitched snorts, hushed anger, and hidden regrets.

"You don't know that." She knew he was right. There would be no available future that allowed him the same pleasures his choices had ripped away. But that was his own fault, his own damning.

"And I suppose you know otherwise." He was tiring of the belief and faith doctors had in redemption and reform.

"I don't" Sometimes it was better to be honest with your patients. The case for honesty was especially strong when the patient had as strong a death-lock on his awaiting reality as he did on fear toxin recipes.

"It still could happen." Megaera actually knew it couldn't. Sometimes she couldn't help lying. Dr. Jonathan Crane was no longer a doctor. He was a man with a piece of paper that meant nothing to the world. He was an unofficial scientist. He was a man that had a chemical formula that was the only piece of him that meant anything to the world.

"And the Riddler could one day stop leaving behind those very solvable clues that always return him home." He saw through her words then. The way she bit her lips together with the obvious knowledge that his descent from the top was impossible to reverse. He smirked as only a bitter man could, jaded at life, yet pleased at least one other person did not fall asleep to the lullaby of altruistic lies.

The guards knocked at the door and came to collect their prisoner. Megaera looked to Crane frustrated she had allowed them to converse so freely. She should have remembered to keep to the script and remain aware of the clock. "Tomorrow we can pick up here if you'd like or continue elsewhere."

She prayed because she lacked the credentials, patience, and experience to survive the Scarecrow. Please God almighty don't let him kill me. He's was a lunatic and he was better than She was at her horrible job. She hated that she felt a little bad for him, knowing his old life had long since been deceased. It was an incorrect emotion to harbor for someone who could, in all actuality, scare her to death.

He was being dragged away, one guard at his front, another at his back. He pivoted away from both laughing wildly. He waved at his doctor. "Goodbye Megaera. Don't let the arachnids bite." The guards grabbed him quickly and shoved him forward, back into form. But his point came across brilliantly.

Guards were not going be able to hold him if he did not wish to be held.

Megaera found her momentary feelings of empathy quickly overwhelmed with those very natural feelings of survival.


End file.
